“Psych rock has become this canopying term,” says Flaural’s Connor Birch. Photo by David Chang.

Psych rock. It’s a pesky little genre term that’s been floating around the American musical landscape since the 1960s, when folk rockers began dropping acid and expanding their minds.

Right now, it’s akin to the new “indie rock”–a catch-all buzzword used by artists and talent buyers to sell a certain sound. Even pop prima donna Miley Cyrus has collaborated with psych-rock stalwarts The Flaming Lips in an attempt to find her freaky new groove.

Connor Birch of Denver band Flaural can attest to this changing of the guard. In late 2014, his popular self-described indie rock band Abandin Pictures broke up. Birch and two other members went on to form Flaural and another created Plum. While Plum cites direct influences from ’60s-era psych rock, Flaural was never attached to the genre. Because of the band’s swirling, synth-driven, reverb-soaked sound, though, critics have resorted to identifying them as psych rock.

“Psych rock has become this canopying term,” Birch says. “The music is associated with psychedelic drugs, but I think there’s a difference between writing what you feel is more artistic or out-of-the-box and, all of a sudden, it gets coined as ‘you must take a lot of drugs.’”

This August, right around Denver psych-fest Synesthesia, Reverb’s Ashley Dean wrote a provocative opinion piece on the city’s over-reliance on the genre. Out of 15 different bands playing a local venue that month, she noted that seven of them identified as psych-rock.

While Dean has a valid point, fledgling bands from Seattle to New Orleans are simply victims of circumstance. Adding psych rock to an “about” section is a logical marketing move because it’s an accessible and relatable descriptor. Meanwhile, artists like Flaural are being slapped with the label against their will.

“I read Ashley’s article and I agreed with most of it, but I don’t think everyone should be lumped in together,” Birch says. “Anyone who is trying to blanket bands together isn’t really listening.”

Reed Fuchs of Denver experimental group DéCollage concurs. “Everyone in the industry has to put things into boxes, so bands have to find interesting ways to describe themselves, but also reimagine what it means for genres to exist at all,” he says.

DéCollage is another project that’s trying to avoid genre-fication altogether. While the band has psych-rock tendencies, it strives to push sonic boundaries by making art imitate life. Fuchs takes sounds from the world around him, even at breakfast. Yes, the grinding of coffee makers or the stirring of oatmeal can be made into a mind-bending soundscape.

“I’m driving down the street and a car almost hits me. That’s a pretty psychedelic experience,” Fuchs explains. “Everyday, something happens and I take that into the music.”

Fuchs’ experimental vision inspired the new “Lunddrifter” app, a trippy mobile game that allows fans to interact with DéCollage’s upcoming “Psycholodge” EP. Gamers can choose a song and manipulate it using various filters or effects. This creates a wildly colorful kaleidoscopic vortex that they can share with friends.

Get vivid with DéCollage’s new mobile game, “Lunadrifter.”

“When you play with it, you automatically feel psychedelic,” Fuchs says, with a laugh. Like psychedelia itself, the game and DéCollage’s music are hard to describe with one general term. Both are abstract enough to let players and listeners come up with their own definitions.

This applies to Kris Becker’s newest project, Freaky North. Becker turned his energy toward Freaky North when his well-received avant-garde outfit The Marrow ended. As a student of jazz and music theory, he draws from influences far beyond psych rock.

“This term psych rock gets put on more things than it needs to because it’s hot,” Becker says. “It doesn’t bother me to be put in that category, but when I write music, I write what feels natural. I don’t think any of us necessarily say we’re going to write psych rock.”

On Wednesday, DéCollage will release its new EP and game at the Bluebird Theater. The band is sharing the stage with one of Fuchs longtime idols, Of Montreal. A few days later on Thursday, Nov. 5, Flaural will release its debut “Thin King” EP at the Hi-Dive alongside Freaky North. Afterward, Flaural will embark on its first-ever Northwest tour, which takes the band from Salt Lake City to Seattle and back again.

According to bandleader Reed Fuchs, life inspires DéCollage’s psychedelic sounds, not genre terms.

Birch and Becker will likely be at Fuchs’ release show and vice versa. Instead of getting swept up in passing classifications, they want to focus on supporting each other.

“The most destructive thing about Denver’s scene is trying to drag bands down or drag them to your show instead,” Birch mentions. “The only way to build the scene is to build it together. There’s no reason to hate on a band because you’re blind to the fact that they’re good at a lot of things. That’s what was so frustrating with [Dean’s] article.”

Dean did give her August think piece a positive conclusion, though. She looked forward to bands of the genre that both music fans and critics could celebrate, distinct voices that could sound above Denver’s psych-rock melange. With the genre under their thumbs, Flaural, DéCollage and Freaky North might be the bands she was looking for.

You can get tickets to DéCollage and Flaural’s respective shows at bluebirdtheater.net and and hi-dive.com.

More in Entertainment

If you've ever related to the boredom and prickliness felt by Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Cartman -- the co-stars of Comedy Central's long-running, potty-mouthed series "South Park" -- Escape the Room's newest offering might be for you.

“Aladdin” is a kids’ movie from the pre-21st century template: alternately lazy and bored, wooden in concept and execution, and lacking any sense that the people in charge thought this was going to matter. It aims low and consistently misses its targets, wasting a breathtaking amount of money, talent and goodwill along the way.

Memorial Day offers the perfect excuse to dust off the grill, get the yard in shape or load up the car for a weekend trip -- provided you haven’t already been doing that over these last few days of warm, sunny weather.